The Mad Girl in the Box
by wittily artistic
Summary: Claire Ericson was six years old when she got her first glimpse at the TARDIS.  Twelve years later, she actually met the man inside.  The Eleventh Doctor's new companion.  No set starting year, but let's assume it's after season six, shall we?
1. Chapter 1

_Claire Ericson sat quietly at the dinner table, her stubby six-year-old fingers picking through her sixty-four-pack of crayons while rain poured outside in the Oregon autumn afternoon. After about six different blues were tossed aside with a grumble from the small girl, her mother walked over and tilted her head._

"_Are you still trying to draw your imaginary box, sweeite?"_

_A set of shocked eyes darted up from the box and stared at her. Claire spoke with a serious tone, "It isn't my box, and it isn't imaginary, but yeah, I'm trying to draw it. None of these blues are right."_

"_Claire," she placed her hand of her daughter's, "the box wasn't there when you brought us outside. It isn't going to appear again, no matter how many ways you draw it."_

"_The box is real, and I want to remember it."_

"_You won't in a few weeks, just remember that."_

_But Claire didn't forget the blue box that appeared in her neighbor's yard. She continued to remember, telling herself that the blue box was real and that something was inside every night before going to bed and every morning before going to school or out to play. For two years this continued, and then this strange little girl who had only glimpsed at the box, she moved to London with her parents. She was given a Polaroid camera to document her new surroundings._

_Three weeks later, she found a better and longer-lasting use for it. That day three weeks after she was given her camera, she was following her parents to the London Eye when she saw something familiar, something she had done a drawing of. It was the strange blue box. Claire took a picture of it and stuck it in her back pocket before her parents could notice. This was the start of a habit that would assemble sixty different photographs over the next ten years of her life. The sixty-first photo would be the last she took of the box, and it would be the first time she met the Doctor._

_It was Claire's going-away party. She was headed for college the next week. New York University, to get a proper artistic experience and education. At about half-past nine, she had wandered away from a drunken uncle with her camera and gone outside. Shortly thereafter she ran headlong into something wooden and blue. She looked up and saw that what she had run into was the box she had been taking pictures of for the past ten years._

_Needless to say, the girl was shocked and flabbergasted. She found the door of the box and then she pulled it open. Slowly, cautiously, full of anxiety and excitement all at the same moment. After stepping inside, Claire Ericson made a very curious discovery._

_The box was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside._


	2. Claire

"Oi!"

Claire jumped and spun in a circle, nearly falling over in the process, and screamed, loudly, her eyes darting about to find where the voice had come from. Once she had righted herself, her gaze focused upon a man who looked in his early twenties, maybe thirties, wearing a suit jacket with a button down shirt and a bow tie. Bow tie. Weird. His hair was in a state that she could only define as being haphazard and messy as hell from the front. He has taller than her, by about three or four inches.

To be brief, he looked like a madman.

Before she could get out another word, he stepped closer and looked down at her with intensity, "Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped and gave the man a questioning look after the question actually sunk in. The part with the word 'TARDIS'–which struck her as the oddest word she'd heard that day–in particular. She had heard quite a few odd words that day, what with her uncle being drunk off his tail end and speaking gibberish as a result, but those were all gibberish, unlike this, whereas this crazy word was simply thrown into the sentence like an average word, almost as if it were perfectly normal to say it.

Claire shook her head to clear it and glanced over the man again. He still looked as crazy as ever, just a little more amused with her than before. She rubbed the back of her head and tilted it at him. "Could you repeat the question please?"

He actually smiled at her and turned her around to look at the curious control-panel-like thing that took up a great deal of the illogically large inside. "You're standing in the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. _My_ Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Why are you in it?"

This man owned the box she'd been documenting for ten years! She began to walk in a circle around him, getting a full picture of him as she slowly spoke, "So…you're the man who owns the box?"

He gave her a look similar to the one she'd given earlier. "Yes. I'm the Doctor, who are you?"

"I'm Claire," she placed her hands on her hips, almost defiantly, and after a moment, she chuckled. "So, Doctor What? You have to have a name."

"I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"That's not a name, it's a title."

"Of course it is, to your human paradigm."

Her eyebrows shot up. Was he insulting her? Wait…human paradigm. He had said her 'human paradigm'. What did he mean by that? He was human! He looked human, and spoke like a human. By the whole "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck" principle, the Doctor was human, right? Her face returned to one of confusion. "Now wait a second! Don't go insulting humanity when you're a human, too!"

The Doctor chuckled, "No, I'm not."

"Oh," Claire's tone slipped into sarcasm, "then I suppose you're an alien, traveling through space in this blue box?"

"And time."

Claire's jaw dropped, "Are you joking me?"

He walked in a circle around her, "No, I'm not, actually. I'm quite serious. I'm not human and the TARDIS is basically a space ship. Remember what I said back a few moments ago?"

She repeated in shock, "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," her eyes widened, "this is a time machine, too?"

"Bingo!"

Claire pressed her finger against his chest, "You're a madman."

"With a box."

"With a box…"

"Yes, now kindly leave my box."

"The blue box," she pressed on, her finger slowly lifting away from the Doctor's chest.

"Yes," he backed away, and began walking toward the control console.

"That I've been taking pictures of for ten years."

"Ye–ten years," the Doctor whipped back around to stare at her in shock, "you've been taking pictures of the TARDIS?"

Claire nodded.

"For ten years?"

She nodded again.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You're awful young to be stalking someone for that long!"

She ran up to him, "I haven't been stalking anyone! My parents didn't believe the box existed so I tried to draw a picture! But there wasn't the right color of blue. The next time I saw it was when I was eight. I had a Polaroid camera with me, so I took a picture! Have been ever since."

"And you're the one calling me a madman," the Doctor retorted with a chuckle, pointing at himself as he did so. "How many times have you spotted the TARDIS, may I ask?"

"Sixty," Claire responded with a nod and a quirked brow, "unless I get a picture this time, then it'll be sixty-one. I like to keep it even, though."

"You mad girl, keeping tabs! I haven't even been to London sixty times…yet."

"Yet?" she was about to question further, but remembered the aspect of this box being a time and space machine. "Oh, yeah, time doesn't really tether you, does it? If you're some time-and-space-traveling alien."

"No, it doesn't. Makes things complicated if you keep running into people out of order. Like if I left and then came back two minutes later but then you were eight years old. Of course that hasn't happened otherwise we wouldn't be just meeting, now would we?"

She leaned back on her heels, "Makes sense…sort of."

"Now," the Doctor leaned forward onto his toes to mimic the direction of the physical conversation, "if you've been keeping tabs on the TARDIS, you must want to do something with it."

"Only if you'd allow me."

"I wouldn't. I may be persuaded to take you somewhere, however."

"Like where?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "it depends on you. Or, if you'd like, I could surprise you. Take you somewhere or some-when, and then drop you back off here before you're even missed."

A wicked smile crossed Claire's lips, looking up at the Doctor. "Surprise me, Madman."


End file.
